THE FOURTH YEAR

more tales from the year of the dragon

I mean that my mind could only pull itself together,
formulate thought out of the muddle of longing and pain,
when it was touched by another mind ...
Anne Rice: Interview with the Vampire

remember, remember, the fifth of November
616-623
624-630
631-633

a lonely hunter
634-640
641-648

mele kalikimaka
649-655
656-662

thus spake zarathustra
663-668
669-673

lucky seven in waikiki
674-675
676-678
679-681

616

I suppose it was fitting that I spent the evening of the Third Anniversary drinking beer and smoking the weed with Angelo and Rossini.

Angelo had already spent all his Crazy Money, sold his foodstamps, and the gathering was his going-away party since he'd finally bought the ticket and was leaving for Kauai the next morning. He's uncertain how long he'll stay and not entirely happy about going at all, but it seems likely he'll be gone at least until November's Crazy Money arrives. He was in a sweet, mellow mood, reminding me again how very much I do like him.

The Sleeptalker's absence from the game is explained by the fact that the computer had been rented and Chinatown Bobby returned it. The old man has left them, so it's just C.B. and the Sleeptalker there now, and C.B. wants to move to Florida next month, taking the Sleeptalker with him. I said I'd file that one in the same drawer with the North Shore House plan of a couple months ago, wait to see if it's just a pipe dream. If it does happen, I wouldn't be surprised at all to hear eventually that the Sleeptalker killed C.B.

The weekend was, aside from the Sunday gathering, thoroughly unexceptional. I'd gone to the State Library on Saturday and was much pleased to find Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire along with yet another Koontz volume. Rice is such an elegant writer.

But everything is in doldrums, waiting for that confounded money, and amusing evenings getting drunk with Bad Boys or reading stylish novels really doesn't much change that.

617

I saw Rocky at the mall on Monday afternoon. He was looking wrecked, asked to borrow five dollars. "Good Lord," I said, "it's only the ninth of the month!" $400+ dollars up in smoke in four and a half days? I refused the request, as much because I only had seven dollars as from any disapproval of his somewhat ridiculous extravagance.

I know I am not going to be a paragon of money management when my Crazy Money starts, especially the first round after this hideous drought of waiting for it, but I'm pretty sure I won't go through it as fast as Rocky and Angelo do. Good reverse role models they are, for me.

On the other hand, I do sympathize with them and even, to some extent, understand the way they handle it. It's a more elaborate version of my having enough money for a beer and saying oh to hell with it, drink it now instead of sitting around wondering when to do it. And I find myself now constantly thinking "when the money comes ...".

Off the hook on my first resolution already. Betka pointed out that November 5th is a Sunday. Okay, so a new passport won't after all be the first thing on the list. I suppose right at the top of my list is the end of snipe hunting. As with easy quarters, I'm sure I'll pick up any sufficiently enticing Japanese-length butts, but I certainly won't be actively hunting them. November will be Virgin Cigarettes Month, definitely. Snipe hunting is the thing I hate most about this crazy lifestyle, albeit not enough to quit smoking.

On that last evening with him, Angelo had asked, "are you going to sleep with me tonight?" Sweet. So, okay, I did go to the hacienda, settled on the bench beside him, and I've gone back there each night since instead of to Park Place. The bench is more comfortable, and the current group of people staying there are mostly quiet and non-snoring. It was Mr. Clean's horrendous snoring which most swayed the decision to return "home", plus knowing the second weekend of October will involve a three-evening festival at Park Place making it unavailable until much later than usual.

Sun versus natal Sun on Thursday, Fool Moon on Friday the Thirteenth. Pray for us sinners ...

618

All the young men ...

The Young Hardhat has either got a new job or has taken the week off, because he hasn't been seen, and he has been missed. But as has always been the case, the hacienda continues to be the major resource when it comes to interesting young men. There are three of them, all new to me, who have been there each night. The Blonde Enigma and his two slim, brown buddies who sleep only in shorts and tee shirt. They are always asleep when I get there, are usually still sleeping when I leave although on Friday morning, the cutest of the brown lads was awake and treated me to the sight of his beautiful torso when he switched tee shirts. Very much in the Mondo mode, but with a better body. The Enigma has been on the bench beside me except for one night. At times he looks like a total hunk but from some angles and some sleeping expressions, doesn't look nearly as interesting. A puzzle. Most nights he has been in shorts and tee shirt, but one night was wearing camouflage fatique pants, one of my weaknesses. All of them are nice, non-snoring sleep companions, and thoroughly enticing.

Speaking of Mondo, I was amazed to see him at the mall very early on Thursday. I'd finished coffee at McD's and was walking over to shave when I saw him bouncing toward me, skateboard in hand. He was in a bubbly, happy mood, bigger smiles than I've ever seen from him, but as usual, so spaced as to be nearly unintelligible. Obscure object of desire, indeed.

A little melon fell from heaven. Well, actually from California, but I know to some folks that's synonymous. It was a more than welcome windfall since this continues to be a very, very difficult time, even more so than I had expected it to be. It's irksome enough waiting for the Crazy Money to arrive without them making it even more so by the long time it's taking them to send me official confirmation and instructions about who, when and where to start those required twice-monthly therapy sessions. I guess they figure that since I won't start getting paid until next month, there's no hurry. Somehow it all seems calculated to make life more difficult.

Fantasy window-shopping, even going into one store to more closely investigate some tempting high tech toys, being especially intrigued by the sweet little mini-disc recorders. It reminds me of childhood when my sister and I played a game we invented ... record shops and collectors, the "recordings" paper discs cut using a silver dollar as a template. And of the long, long time I spent fervently wishing for a tape recorder, which at that time I only knew existed because of articles in magazines like Popular Mechanics. It took awhile, but those wishes certainly were granted eventually and there haven't been many times in my life when I didn't have one kind or another of audio and/or video recording devices. Do I really need one now? Isn't the idea to keep the backpack as lightweight as possible? (Not that a mini-disc player and collection of discs would add that much weight). With live music gigs every night of the week in this town, do I need to carry around "canned" stuff? Questions of a thousand Crazy Money dreams.

619

Despite some earnest but ineffective lectures to myself on the theme of Be Here Now, I realize I just have to surrender, accept the fact that it isn't going to happen for the rest of October 2000. This, even though I realize how stupid it is. Just how different would this Fool Moon Weekend have been had the first batch of Crazy Money suddenly appeared on my plastic card? Probably not much.

There wouldn't have been any snipe hunting which would have been the greatest luxury. I would be wearing some new clothes. Although an expedition to Savers is high on the list, I'm also planning on a Duke's polo shirt, the third one I'll have owned. The first two were worn until they faded away to rags. And it's time to acquire a winter shirt, plus some kind of cover (flannel sheet, probably, because I really don't like those "space blankets"). Yes, the nights are getting cool.

I never much liked Duke's on a weekend, prefer not to even go into Waikiki at all on Saturday, but maybe I would have had a couple of beers at the mall's Mai Tai Bar. Ordinarily I might have gone to Manoa Garden on Friday evening for the live music, but the Fool Moon night's offering was "Punk Night" with several bands and I heard more than enough of the "music" just walking past, so that would have been out.

So, indeed, yes, it wouldn't have been much different with a few hundred dollars in pocket.

The new boys apparently share their wardrobe and it has been Luther's turn to wear the camouflage fatiques for two nights. I'm not entirely sure why I settled on that name for the most handsome of the two brown lads, but so it is. The Enigma has been on a corner bench for two nights, surrounded by the brown lads, reminding me of the old days when it sometimes seemed Rocky and Mondo conspired to keep the Sleeptalker isolated from me. In this case, I don't mind at all since I've had the bench next to Luther and he is quite stunning in those camouflage pants with a generously stuffed crotch and a sweatshirt which slides up in the night to reveal a strip of flat brown belly. It's a good thing I've felt quite tired, not a wise idea to stay awake all night enjoying the view.

Jonathan Cainer said something rather dramatic about Friday the Thirteenth being some kind of turning point I'd remember in years to come. No, I don't think so, unless it does turn out to be the last time I have a sexual encounter with a sweet young student. And somehow I don't think that will be the case.

619a

"You've been poor too long," I told myself over my sunset brew. Lost imagination, lost any shred of style. The weekend would have been no different? What about Eggs Benedict and a Bloody Mary sitting by the ocean at the Halekulani a little after sunrise?

Then along came Rocky and another way the weekend could have been very different. He was in a happy, flirtatious mood and looked better than he has in a long time. Scrumptious. Yeh, I could have had Rocky for fifty bucks, no problem, and he'd be worth it. Not only that, but making it purely a business transaction would keep it from being loaded in other ways.

He begged for a beer. I declined, sipping the last of mine. He begged and flirted some more. So I finally gave in, said take off your shirt and give me a look at that beautiful chest of yours to pay for your beer. Big grin, stood up and peeled off the shirt, posed nicely for me. If anything, his body is getting better with age (not that 24 is even close to being over the hill). Yes, it would have been worth it.

What a small town this is. Luther is Tongan, Rocky told me. He knew immediately who I was talking about when he asked who was staying at the hacienda. Rocky and Luther had a major punch-up not long ago. That must have been quite a fight.

Angelo had called the Iceman, said he hated it in Kauai and is returning this week. And Chinatown-B had shown Rocky the airline tickets, so if the Sleeptalker doesn't back out at the last minute, they'll be off to Orlando soon. Silly Sleeptalker, he could have done so much better.

All my children ...

620

Ugh.

I spent my next-to-last dollar on a Monday nightcap bottle of Mickey's, enjoyed it while continuing Eric Lustbader's exotic thriller, French Kiss. The weekend reading had been Grisham's The Rainmaker, engrossing but annoying in the way all his books are. I don't know much about the legal profession but I've worked enough with insurance companies and brokers to know his depiction of that industry in this book is nonsense. I suspect the legal picture is equally so. Lustbader's global yarn is probably even greater nonsense, but one isn't asked to really believe it.

I was feeling extremely down all day, burdened even further by the prospect of hunting for quarters for the almost two weeks before the Fabled Pension Check arrives to soothe the pain of waiting for the Crazy Money. The last time I went through something like this was in late 1988 when my nephew and I arrived in Seattle and had to wait for a replacement credit card to arrive before we could set out on our expedition through the USA west of the Mississippi. Those days of waiting were heavy, as are these. I'm just no good at the game of waiting.

So I only wanted to get to the hacienda and collapse on a bench, escape into sleep, even if dreams, too, have been shadowed by this money idiocy.

Luther and his buddies were already asleep with, alas, no vacant bench beside them. But on the back bench of the front row, there sat the Sleeptalker and Angelo, beer bottles in hand, Rossini asleep on a bench in front of them. I sat outside to finish my cigarette. The Sleeptalker asked me to drink some beer with them. I just waved and shook my head, signalling that I'd had enough already. Angelo peered around a column at me, and I waved to him.

It has been such a long time since I last caught a glimpse of the Sleeptalker I'd almost forgotten just what magic chemistry there is between us, how utterly desireable he is for me. But I couldn't talk to him. I knew there was no way I could not be bitchy about his hideously ill-advised journey with Chinatown-B.

I finished my cigarette and left without saying anything, walked over to the New Cloisters and slept there, despite the bright flourescent light and the chiming clock tower, a later-arriving bench companion rocking the boat every time he shifted position. At least I was with strangers, no sexy Bad Boys to bewitch, bother and bewilder me.

621

Perhaps not a saison in hell, but sometimes three days can seem like a season. I really shouldn't complain. This year has been relatively free of real downers. And certainly it wasn't entirely unexpected after that brief swing into manic mode.

But the severity of it does catch me offguard. I can't call it suicidal because it's deep enough that it doesn't even seem worth the bother to jump off the Aloha Tower.

I've tried to break the causes into individual segments, look at each and see what can be done about them.

Nothing, in the first case, and perhaps the most crucial. There is nothing I can do about the Sleeptalker and it would probably be a major mistake to even try. With that one, I just have to accept the fact that it is justifiably an extremely depressing situation which is beyond my control or ability to influence.

There is, likewise, little I can do about the bureaucratic dance, although if it continues to be stalled for much longer I shall visit the office and ask my caseworker just what is going on and what I am supposed to do. It's absurd that more than two weeks have passed without receiving further word from them, especially with that obligation to attend twice-monthly therapy sessions pending.

As for the money itself, well, I know completely it won't really make that much difference, especially after the novelty of it has dimmed. But I also know that suffering through two weeks of hunting quarters only to have that largesse dumped in my lap is asking for trouble. That I could do something about, or at least try to, so I asked for a loan against the Crazy Money. Request was granted.

It will be interesting to see just what effect that has.

622

Day One of the Crazy Money wasn't much different than any other Wednesday in recent months. As on the day of the Fabled Pension Check's arrival each month, the first reaction was "duh ... money in pocket, now what?" A little more intense this time, of course, since it's just the first of several melons from heaven coming up in the immediate future.

I did well enough to be pleased with myself. The lion's share of the day's expenses went for beer. $14 for beer, a tie between cigarettes and a book at $8 each. Add a bowl of chili, the price of which I didn't even notice, and that was the cash money outlay for the day.

The beer was extravagant but it's refreshing to pay extra for quality.

And the book was Maeve Binchy's Tara Road which I've been longing for since it appeared in the shops a few months ago. No doubt about it, she is my favorite living author.

When I got to the hacienda the night before, Angelo was sitting on the steps talking with an older man I'd not seen before. I was tired again, just waved and settled on a bench, was asleep before they'd finished chatting. I had to smile in the morning, looking at Angelo asleep, wearing white jeans. Considering how fussy he is about his clothes being clean, those pants must mean visiting the laundromat almost every day. Funny sweetie, he is.

I was a little surprised he hadn't come looking for me since his return from Kauai, but then I spent very little time at the mall and was only in the park in the late afternoon long enough to drink a bottle of Colt, eat a sandwich, and treat the birds to some buttermilk biscuits which they seem especially fond of. I know the Gypsy Boy uses his foodstamps to feed Cat, but I wonder how many of us spend plastic money on bird feeding?

Of course, Angelo doesn't know I have money, although he undoubtedly heard about me buying a beer for Rocky. And Angelo most likely came back from Kauai with birthday money from Mama, since he turns 24 next week Friday.

The day was made complete by ... at last ... arrival of the written confirmation that, yes, I indeed do have Crazy Money coming for six months. They are certainly treating me differently than they have any of the Bad Boys. It's entirely up to me to arrange the therapy sessions and apparently they will not even monitor it on a regular basis, simply warned me that if I hadn't complied at the end of the six months, I'd be dropped. But I was a little irked, although not surprised, to see I'll get less than Angelo or Rocky, thanks to the Fabled Pension Check. Humbug, the price of honesty. Never should have told them about that, since they would most likely never have found out about it.

Still, it was a relief to get that confirmation, as it was to get the cash advance, even if, like I said, the main reaction is "duh .... what now?"

623

Crazy Money letters:

Subject: I may be crazy, but ...

... I ain't nearly as crazy as The System.

After waiting two and a half weeks, I finally got written confirmation that I'm officially crazy, unable to work "more than 30 hours a week". There were three letters, posted separately, arriving at the same time. One of them warned me again that I must seek "psycho therapy" [yes, two words] twice a month or be dumped from the program.

The Jewish doctor had told me to go to Straub Clinic.

I went there, letter in hand. The young lady at the reception desk hadn't a clue what to do with me. She called my "caseworker", who then spoke to me. The caseworker said she couldn't tell me how to fulfill the obligation, just that I had to do it.

As the receptionist said, "this letter doesn't make any sense." I assured her it was the most sensible of the three I'd received. The one explaining my actual cash benefits is an utter classic. It starts off saying I would get $31 a month. I have absolutely no idea what that is, but it's nonsense, because I get $350 a month, eighty dollars less than most people I know because of my Fabled Pension Check.

Well, she thought maybe I should see the psychiatrists. Errrr .... yes, I think that is what "psycho therapy" implies, but they have moved from Straub Clinic next door to the First Insurance building. I went there. The security dude told me the psychiatric section of Straub was on the 10th floor. That was the Straub Foundation. Back down to the 8th floor ...

Now, my largesse began on October 1st and yes, bingo, suddenly $350 appeared on my plastic card. And my obligation is to have those two sessions monthly. The first time the Straub headshrinks can see me is November 28th.

I tell you, if they try to disqualify me for this, I am going to raise HELL.

And if I hadn't just spent an entirely delightful afternoon treating some Bad Boys to beer at the Mai Tai Bar, Ala Moana, I'd think the whole effing exercise is incredibly stupid.

p.s.

You know, what I think is most disgusting and even amoral about this ...
To convert the Crazy Money to cash from plastic, one is forced to use a bank's ATM machine.
And the bank charges one dollar for each withdrawal.

And it was indeed an absolutely delightful afternoon at the Mai Tai Bar, the best time I've had with the Bad Boys since those delicious days with the Sleeptalker. I owed Rossini, he has been so kind buying me beer when I was broke. "I don't owe him anything," I said, looking at Angelo, who grinned and said he'd drink ice water. But we went through forty dollars of beer and two shots of Cuervo 1800, one for me and one shared with Angelo. He was being a scandalous flirt and I could actually have ended up in bed with him.

I just wasn't sure I really want to. Oh, I do want it, no use denying that, but the friendship is so sweet and amusing with him having that bait to dangle before me. I can't give it up unless I'm really sure I want his body that much.

Each day the main extravagant gesture has gotten larger, time to slow down already. On Thursday that GUESS bracelet finally fell off without me noticing it, probably thanks to the two jugs of Sam Adams Oktoberfest brew I'd consumed before sensing something strange about my wrist. Yes, it being naked. I went to the Silver Rhino at the mall and bought a Balinese sterling silver replacement. Like some New York Jewish lady, Angelo admired it, asked, "and it was how much?" Heh. Twenty-four, I said. He also admired my new tan corduroy trousers and asked how much they had cost, had I bought them at one of the posh department stores? Five dollars, I said, and no, at Savers, where I had also acquired two new shirts. One of them is a dusty medium-blue tee shirt with a fleur-de-lis and FIRENZE ITALIA elegantly embroidered in gold thread on the front. Odd journey it must have made, from Florence to a bargain clothing store in Honolulu.

But then its new owner has had a pretty odd journey to Honolulu, too.

624

Here we go again, the hacienda declared off-limits. The "assistant director" of the place came out at about ten o'clock on Saturday night and woke us up. He explained that they didn't like to do it, but there had just been too many people treating the place like a nightclub, drinking beer and leaving bottles scattered around. As I said to Angelo, walking over to the New Cloisters, "now who would do a thing like that?"

I had gotten there fairly early, hadn't even noticed the time after having a third bottle of Colt in the park at sunset, and it was only me, Angelo and Rossini who were at the hacienda to be evicted. Surprisingly enough, it was also only us, with one later addition, at the New Cloisters where Angelo and I shared one of the long benches. I suspect the bright light and the chiming clock has made the place less desireable as a sleeping sanctuary. That's fine with me, earplugs in place (not that they block out the midnight peal especially) and shorts folded over my eyes to block the light. And certainly it was fine to be sharing the bench with that sweetie.

As resolved, I did manage to slow down on Saturday. Morning on campus, then a trip to Chinatown for cheap cigarettes, stopping by the State Library to pick up a couple of books, since I was nearing the end of Binchy's fine Tara Road and thought it best to postpone buying another of her books until next month. There are now only three or four I haven't read, and I want to read them all.

Whether I would have held it down to 40oz bottles of cheap beer had any of the Bad Boys come along, I doubt, but on my own it was no problem. I'd considered going to the gig at Gordon Biersch in the evening but was sufficiently oiled to know I'd never last until Makana's nine o'clock start. As I told Kory K last week, I just can't drink as much as I used to be able to. And that's not a bad thing at all.

Sunday was dreary, despite Cainer's predictions of some brightening influence. It was cloudy, the air heavy and sultry, tempting to find some air-conditioned place and not budge. For some hours I did that, staying on campus in the computer lab, avoiding the mall where there was one of the awful "sidewalk sales" and larger than usual crowds. But I did go to the park for a late lunchtime sandwich and brew which just slightly improved my mood. No bad boys all day. Angelo and Rossini are into a heavy inseparable phase, which happens now and then, and I wonder what they are doing all day.

After a late afternoon return to campus the mood was sagging again, didn't improve much over a nightcap. When I got to the New Cloisters, Angelo and Rossini were sharing a long bench, Angelo looked up and we exchanged waves. It was almost a full house, but amazingly enough the one solo bench was free, so I grabbed it. It's less sheltered from the wind, which kept blowing the shorts off my eyes and letting the bright light wake me up. I thought I should do a "What's My Line" routine and get eye masks ... just in time for Halloween. Restless sleep and strange, strange dreams.

The Young Hardhat was at the mall on Monday morning, a bright start to the day. He looked right in my eyes the second time he passed me, with a totally neutral expression. He's so damned cute he must have plenty of experience with both sexes giving him lustful looks, but he certainly shows no sign of acknowledging it, either positively or negatively. I thought, if Rocky's worth fifty dollars, this guy is worth a hundred.

Money, no money -- no difference. That's a crock. Maybe it's true on an abstract philosophical level but in the so-called Real World, there's just no way it doesn't make a difference.

625

Finally made it!

Tuesday, I stayed on campus the entire day, indulging in the most intense session of MUDding since 1987. Now, as then, I was very close to the top of the ladder. For months I've played at level 99 in Seventh Circle, not much concerned with the rather tedious crawl to 100, the max. But Monday was a thoroughly dispiriting, even depressing day in the game. And with a certain irony, it may be that the two most important elements of my life in the past two years are about to disappear at almost the same time.

My preoccupation with Seventh Circle was in the beginning, of course, entirely the result of the Sleeptalker playing it. Then I began to enjoy the company of many of the players, having been fond of these games for so many years and well aware that the success of any particular game depends absolutely on a group of interesting, loyal players. Unfortunately, Boss Brook has run this game for so long, and has evidently spent so little time looking at other free MUDs on the net, that he's lost sight of that. And the most influential "Immortal" on Seventh Circle, who calls herself "Darkana", is such an egomaniac she has probably never known it.

So Brook has decided he wants to run an entirely new MUD and is still uncertain whether he will keep Seventh Circle up on a different port address. He's crazy if he thinks his player base will switch to a new game, starting from scratch, unless it's a very, very good MUD and he finds much better "Immortals" to manage it than he has done with Seventh Circle. And Darkana, especially, is being a total bitch about the whole thing, probably miffed at losing her "Immortal" status, and insisting that we have to prove we are "worthy" of having the game continue on a different port (without, as Brook plans, any Immortals at all). As if playing the thing for years hasn't already proven our commitment to it.

So I decided it was time to make that final effort, reach the top, if only because I knew it would irk Darkana who has never managed to do it with her earlier "mortal" players. And it was delightful to reach the peak while she was on-line. She was the only player on at the time who didn't offer hearty congratulations. Heh.

The situation within the game had me in a totally foul mood by late afternoon on Monday, but I had agreed to meet Mme de Crécy for after-work drinks at Gordon Biersch and her always fine company plus the pleasure of sitting out by the harbor on a warm autumn evening considerably improved my state of mind. After walking her home, I went on to the New Cloisters and was much surprised to see Rossini there without Angelo. Angelo's grandmother had given him some money when he returned from Kauai, but he'd said his mother was sending his birthday money this week, so I assume he got it and was, as usual, holed up in a Waikiki room with his glass pipe, reason enough for Rossini to be on his own.

After the more cheering day in the game on Tuesday, I went directly from campus to the New Cloisters, the first person there. Despite a large gathering in the meeting hall, I was so tired I fell asleep and didn't even awaken when the crowd departed. I did stir slightly when someone took the other end of the bench, a young man I've mistaken for Angelo several times, and did again. It was only when I more fully woke up later that I saw it wasn't Angelo. This fellow surely does toss and turn in his sleep, and I finally moved to another bench. Odd how the population count there changes so much each night, even more odd it didn't turn out to be a full house since it seemed to rain throughout the night.

And it's also odd how little it can take to make a crazy old man welcome each dawn. I'm so smitten with the Young Hardhat, though, that he's the main reason I look forward to still being alive at the next dawn. He has changed habits, now goes to McD's each morning, arriving a little later than I do. As he passes my bench, he's on his own, but twice he has met a co-worker in McD's so returns with company. On his own, he has each time looked me directly in the eye. With his buddy, he ignores me, and I am careful not to make my adoration obvious then. But either way, how I do treasure those moments each morning.

626

Oh gawd, he's back. Angelo told me the Sleeptalker and Chinatown-B had a fight, which explained why the Sleeptalker had been at the hacienda a couple of weeks ago. But he had gone back to Chinatown-B the next day. I guess they must have had another fight, because the Sleeptalker showed up at the New Cloisters on Wednesday night, sometime after I'd been asleep.

Once again, I was the first to arrive there and took the one solo bench. A little later I woke to the eleven-chime clock serenade and saw Rossini was on the bench next to me. Just before the midnight chime, I was awakened again by yakking. The Sleeptalker. I pretended to be asleep, could see him from a gap in my shorts-over-eyes cover. It took him ages to settle down and after first trying a bench on the other side of the area, he moved to share the one with Rossini. Then he started chatting to Angelo2. His parents have moved again, his father to Makaha and his mother to Nanakuli. He told Angelo2 about his mother having the restraining order against him. I think the Sleeptalker's quite proud of that, and he always gets the "amazing your own family could do such a thing" reaction. You have to know him better to understand just how they could be driven to it.

He has a truly dreadful haircut and is extraordinarily pale, must not have left the apartment for weeks. And he looks so much older than he did a year ago, although far younger than 25. Still, undeniably a sweet vision when he finally settled down and pulled his tee shirt up to reveal that slim torso, stuck one hand down the front of his pants. Sigh.

He was carrying a large, well-filled Nike bag, so maybe this time he really has left Chinatown-B. I have half expected him to back out of the Florida trip and am curious to see whether he does stay away from Chinatown-B this time, but I still want to keep my distance. It's all over now, Baby Blue, and I don't mind if it stays that way, even if I can't deny I love the guy as much as ever.

Dame Fortune gave me a sweet bonus gift on Wednesday by timing my arrival at the mall for lunch, the first-ever midday encounter with the Young Hardhat. I followed along behind him on my way to supermarket, smiling when he stopped to admire a puppy in the pet store window. One sweet puppy admiring another. But, alas, no sign of him on Thursday morning. Maybe he'd joined one of the mobs of young men in line outside stores in the pre-dawn hours, waiting for a chance to acquire a Playstation 2. I wonder how many people called in "sick" because of the first day of sale for that gadget?

Speaking of gadgets, I acquired a Braun battery travel razor. I'd had one when I started this trip three years ago but it eventually gave up the ghost and I've relied on blades since then. Nice to have that little touch of luxury back again.

But as expected, the greatest luxury provided by the Crazy Money is the end of snipe hunting. A close second, though, is being able to go to the Paradise Palms cafe on campus when I feel in the mood for a hot breakfast. Scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon, toast .... yes, that's luxury.

627

There are plenty of fish in the sea.

I couldn't help thinking of that as I was walking along the beach in Waikiki at sunset on Thursday. So many handsome, even beautiful young men, slim brown bodies, surfboards under their arm. The dear Sleeptalker would have looked like a total wimp beside any of them, and a very white wimp. But when I woke during the night to see him sleeping again on the bench with Rossini, no use denying he's still Number One in my sea.

I'd stayed on campus for the morning, went to the park for a lunchtime brew and Swiss cheese on rolls, the birds getting the major share of the rolls. How brutal Nature can be. A tiny zebra dove had fallen out of or prematurely left the nest. A fat white European pigeon rushed over and appeared intent on stomping it to death. Yeukh. Needless to say, I jumped up and chased the pigeon away, but I suspect that baby zebra dove was doomed, one way or another.

The pigeons are such a menace in the park, make it so difficult to feed the little doves. I've taken to wedging bread in between the slats of the picnic table so the doves can peck away at it in peace, but it often means having to chase the bolder, greedier pigeons away when they try to join in rather than being content with the crumbs which fall beneath the table. By now those damned pigeons should know what "let the little ones eat" means.

I stayed in the park until late afternoon before heading to Waikiki. I'd told Angelo I'd take him with me to Aunty Genoa's birthday gig at the Hawaiian Regent but he didn't show up at the mall or the park. I saw Rocky, who wanted me to buy him lunch, said he was starving. "You poor baby," I said, and went on to the supermarket. I needed to change a twenty, would have given him five if he'd still been sitting outside but he had gone on his way. Just as well, I really shouldn't pamper these guys.

So I went to the gig on my own which was also probably just as well, easier to enjoy the magic of the evening without chatter. And it was, as always, indeed magic. A rather sweet new bartender was looking after me well all evening despite the enormous crowd and the heavy workload. He spotted me wiping away a tear or two after Jerry Santos joined Genoa for a duet, and gave me a beer. Now that's a routine I'd never thought of, sitting weeping at a bar and being pitied enough to get free beer. Hmmmm.

I went straight to the New Cloisters after the gig. Angelo, Rossini and the Sleeptalker were there. Although I can never be sure with Angelo, it's always absolutely clear when the Sleeptalker has been at the glass pipe. He talks in a funny high voice like a cartoon character. I told Angelo I'd looked for him, said Rocky had been looking for him, too. "So you spent all mama's money already, eh?" I asked, and he grinned, admitted he had. I wished him a happy birthday, a couple of hours early, and went to a bench on the other side of the area, was quickly asleep, earplugs blocking their continued chat.

Looking at the three of them still asleep when I left in the morning, I thought "seems like old times" .... and wondered how long it will be before they manage to get us all kicked out of this sanctuary, too.

628

Hmmm, replace the Bad Boys with some Good Boys? Maybe. Of course, just how "good" they are, I can't say yet. Accepting free beer from a Dirty Old Man is just being smart, not necessarily "bad". And certainly they seem like earnest young students, are very sweet and polite, and apparently allow themselves one night a week of drinking at Manoa Garden. Sweethearts, all of them, but one is especially so.

In utter contrast to Thursday night with Genoa and friends, Friday at the Garden featured a band that call themselves THC. Caribbean types, or wannabes, with enough hair to make a thousand wigs. One of the keyboard players was fairly old, a grizzled white beard, and dreadlocks hanging down below his knees! They were very impatient with the two lads on the soundboard and walked out after playing for a couple of minutes. I guess they debated losing whatever income they would have gotten from the gig, because they returned after about ten minutes. The music was rather indifferent, neither good nor bad.

But the main pleasure for me, and the reason I stayed longer than I otherwise would have, was watching the three young men at a nearby table. As I said, one of them was a real sweetheart. Two were drinking large bottles of Heineken, watching every young woman who came into the place. One of them finally got up the courage to approach a rather pretty girl who gave him an abrupt cold shoulder. The sweetie noticed me watching the routine and we exchanged grins. I told the server to give them two more bottles of the Heineken and they came over to shake my hand and thank me, returned to do it again as they were leaving and said they'd see me next Friday. Yes, I think they'd do very nicely as a replacement for the Bad Boys.

Another surprise of the evening was handsome young Gregory walking through, the first time I've seen him in ages. I told him he looked like a real surfer dude, as he did, and he laughed, said that's just what he has turned into. I offered to buy him a beer but he's stopped drinking. Clever fellow. Alcohol is such a lousy drug (says I, groaning through the morning-after evidence).

After debating whether or not to have the roast turkey I'd seen was a Friday lunch option at the campus cafe, Paradise Palms, I went instead to the park for the usual sandwich and beer combo. I'm sure the zebra doves were grateful I'd decided against the turkey. Walking through the mall afterwards, I spotted Mme de Crécy and her sister, visiting from North Carolina, sitting outside at Bubba Gump's so I joined them, had two of that place's excellent "Boilers" ... a glass of Bud and a shot of Cuervo. How do I love tequila, never mind what a lousy drug it is.

They went on to do some birthday gift shopping and I returned to campus, played Seventh Circle for awhile, then sat in the secluded grove continuing A Certain Justice, an elegant tale of murder from the always delightful P.D. James which Mme de Crécy had kindly given me on Monday.

Then to the Garden, those sweet encounters and far too much of the Sam Adams Oktoberfest brew. Fortunately I had the sense to throw half of the last one away, got on a mall-bound bus and fell asleep, woke up to find myself way up in the mountains. Ooops. The driver thought it funny, said we'd be taking a five minute break and then he'd be going through downtown. It was beautiful up there, so incredibly quiet, with the twinkling lights of the downtown skyline off in the distance.

Quiet it was NOT, however, at the New Cloisters. The Social Horror Club was in full swing. The Sleeptalker sounding like Minnie Mouse, Rossini literally staggering drunk, even the dreaded RedEye back. I wished Angelo a happy birthday again and left. No, it won't be long before they get everyone evicted from that sanctuary, too. Back to Park Place, Sidney and Mr. Clean, Long John missing. Darkness ... and quiet ... and sweet thoughts about Good Boys.

629

Make someone happy, make just one someone happy ...

Impossible. If you make someone happy, it also gives you at least a moment of happiness, so you can't do it for just one someone. Each day I've tried to do at least one little thing to make someone happy, whether it's a free beer, a pack of cigarettes or even, in the case of Sidney, just three cigarettes. Heaven knows, I have more knowledge of who needs what and just how much is appropriate than anyone else at the mall and in the beach park. So far, only one strike-out. The Queen Mum always carries two large plastic bags and one of them is getting really battered. So I thought I'd buy her one of the big cloth carrier bags from the Old Navy store. Silly buggers wouldn't sell me one ... they're just for use while shopping in the store. ABC charges almost $12 for a similar canvas tote bag, but that's way overboard for the Queen Mum. It's important not to give too much. I'll have to look around at Savers next time I'm there and see if they have anything suitable.

The weekend was again quite unexceptionable, mornings on campus, afternoons in the park, as little time as possible in the ever-crowded mall, although I did stay for the Hawaiian Thistle Pipes Band gig on Sunday afternoon. Hearing a group of bagpipers launch into "Amazing Grace" always sends a chill of pleasure through me and this was no exception. What they had to do with the French Festival entertainment, I'm not sure, but no complaints.

No Bad Boys all weekend, very strange since they must all be quite broke by now. I do wonder what they're doing with themselves all day, and where, even if I haven't really minded the break.

There are two areas at Park Place, one on the south, the other on the north, and I've always slept with Long John, Sidney and Mr. Clean in the south part. But there had been a Taiwanese Festival there all day Saturday and were still tables and stacked folding chairs in the sleeping area, so I went to the north one instead. There was just one other man there, and he didn't snore. Most excellent. So I returned on Sunday night and had the place to myself. I suspect this is mainly because there's little shelter from the wind there, so once it gets cooler, or if it's wet, the south area would be the better option.

But despite wondering at sunset whether it was finally going to feel cooler than comfortable during the night, since the wind was gusting and it did indeed feel cooler than it has since last winter, the wind died down and it was again a very warm night. It was enough of a warning, though, to move the question of acquiring a flannel sheet or somesuch to the top of the list, despite having no joy in the thought of lugging the thing around until spring.

All I want is a room somewhere, far away from the cold night air ... with one enormous chair, oh wouldn't it be luverly ...

Nawwww ... unnecessary luxury in these tropic climes. Still, I have to admit it's a winter fantasy.

630

"You saw your buddy?" Rocky asked, although I was sure he knew I had. "Yes, I saw him twice last week." "And you were real happy?" he grinned.

"No," I said, "I stopped sleeping there." He was surprised. I explained that they always wanted to party but I had already partied elsewhere and when I got to the bench I just wanted to sleep. One nice thing about the Bad Boys is the grapevine they form. I can always count on saying something to one of them and know it will circulate. And I was glad to let the Sleeptalker know it isn't something personal against him.

Of course, Rocky asked me to buy him something, this time breakfast. I refused, but offered him a McD's coupon for a free sandwich. He didn't want it. "Picky, picky," I said, and went on my way.

As difficult as it is sometimes to be with my "buddy" in person, it has almost always been a pleasure to have the Sleeptalker in Seventh Circle and I was happy to see him login on Monday morning. I figured he'd eventually return to the game, especially when broke, and as usual, I helped him out with some difficult-to-get gear, enjoyed our exchanges. But I didn't change my plans, left while he was still playing, saying I had to go to Chinatown to buy smokes and then do laundry. And I did, making a stop at the State Library to pick up a book. The silly laundromat's machine was out of soap, so I ended up going back toward campus and using the laundromat there.

Stupid that laundry technology has improved so little, that it takes so much time to wash and dry a few clothes, but I had a bottle of Colt with paper cup and straw, sat on a large boulder outside (with a view of my machine), smoked, drank and contemplated the chalky corpse of a little gecko which was laying belly-up on the sidewalk.

I had seriously considered the notion of just buying new clothes from that very cheap discount store instead of bothering with laundry anymore, but failed to reckon on acquiring some stuff I like well enough to want to keep for awhile, at least. So what is needed is a Star Trek type replicator, could just put the dirty ones in it and get clean duplicates. After all, this is almost the 21st century, can't we get a little decent progress?

631

November began with a gloomy, gray day, not once a trace of sunshine. It did, at least, stay dry until after sunset and then seemed to rain all night, continuing in the morning. I got to Park Place North just before the rain began, so no problem, although it did mean more people in residence than usual.

After having the place blissfully to myself for a couple of nights, I woke up on Tuesday night to see that the Wild Man had settled on the other side of the area. I've seen him in the park for many years, long before I joined the tribe. He is a determined loner, rarely speaks to anyone. He almost never wears a shirt, just shorts and low boots, carries two stuffed bags and a guitar. Every day he takes over a picnic table in the park, spends more time shadow-boxing than playing the guitar, and makes occasional trips to the mall, I think mainly for snipe hunting. I've showered with him several times but have never exchanged any words with him, so it was a surprise to see him sleeping so near me. He was back again on the wet Wednesday night, along with a man with a bicycle, and later a rather noisy couple abandoned their usual place in the park and took shelter with us. The man was either a loony or drunk, kept making a grim cackling noise. It was too wet to switch to Park Place South, so I adjusted the earplugs and went back to sleep.

I stayed on campus all day aside from a quick trip downtown to collect the Fabled Pension Check and to Waikiki to cash it, celebrated its arrival with three jugs of that Sam Adams Oktoberfest brew. "I'll almost be glad when this stuff is gone," I told Bartender Bryant, "almost." It is most excellent beer but so strong. Only by spreading those three jugs over seven hours and following up the last one with a Mexican dinner did I escape misery the next morning.

My appropriate-for-Halloween reading material had been Orson Scott Card's charming fantasy, Enchantment, and Danielle Steel's The Ghost. Both of them blended a contemporary story with one from the distant past, Card's via a portal in time, Steel's with diaries from a woman who had owned the house the contemporary hero lived in. Both good reading, and again one of Steel's better works. And now for something completely different, discovered on Hamilton Library's fifty-cent cart, Anatoli Rybakov's Children of the Arbat, set in pre-WW2 Stalinist Russia. It makes me very, very happy to have arrived on this planet in the USA and not the USSR.

I only discovered later in the day that the Big Island had been utterly drenched with record rains, roads washed out, houses even shifted from their foundations by the raging floods. There was a Flood Watch on this island and heavy thunderstorms predicted later. It actually turned out to be a fairly pleasant, although heavy atmosphere, mid-day and I went to the Garden for a Sam Adams and continued the fine Rybakov novel. I saw the Cherub and offered to buy him a beer but he was eager to get home before the weather worsened. When I got back to the computer lab, there was a message from Kory K offering shelter for the night. Ahhhh ... yes, a comfy futon was a very much nicer prospect than a damp concrete floor at Park Place.

Luckily the heavy late afternoon rains paused long enough for me to pick up a big steak and some brew, getting to Kory's place without being drenched. Comfy place, good company (including the ever delightful Keali'i) and lousy television. If I had that room somewhere, far away from the cold night air, I would NOT want a television set in it.

632

The university was closed for Election Day, necessarily making it a day very different from the usual routine. So I decided, for the first time this year, to spend the entire day in Waikiki. It was such perfect weather, as I said elsewhere the kind of November day which truly makes me feel lucky to live here. I sat in Kapiolani Park reading during the morning, walked over to get a bottle of Colt and returned again to the book, stopping to watch a group of hula dancers practising in that elegant new bandstand. Then I grabbed an abandoned beach mat and settled on the sand to soak up the sun for an hour or so and watch the handsome young men frolicking in the water nearby.

I had determined to limit myself to a twenty-dollar budget for the day, knowing that being offline would make it more of a temptation to buy my way out of boredom. But as it turned out, I didn't even spend half that. I resisted the ever-increasing internet cafes, walked into Duke's but saw it was quite crowded and without anyone particularly interesting, considered visiting the new Hula's for the first time but rejected that idea, too. So breakfast and an early dinner at Jack-in-the-Box and two bottles of Colt, a final one as a nightcap back at the mall ... that was it for outgoing money.

There had been neither Bad nor Good Boys on Friday. Aside from a quick trip to Chinatown to buy cigarettes and lunch at the beach park, I spent all day and most of the evening on campus. I was surprised not to see at least one of the Bad Boys at the park, equally surprised the lads from last week weren't at Manoa Garden for the evening gig.

The band was called Syx Pack, had more potential than most I've heard this season at the Garden although like so many of the local young musicians with ambitions to rock, they just don't understand that making a lot of noise isn't the most important thing. Too much effort to arouse enthusiasm, not nearly enough attention to making the words of the songs comprehensible. I left after the first set. Flash was there, the first time I've seen him in over a year. He either didn't notice me at all or just didn't want to leave his friends to say hello to the old guy sitting in the back. But otherwise the crowd was mostly the old tenured UH workers or professors who seem to spend much of their lifes sitting in Manoa Garden, mid-day and evening, sucking up the cheap beer.

On Saturday I didn't even go to the beach for lunch, stayed on campus until the computer lab closed at 4:30. I decided I'd see how quickly I could level a new character in Seventh Circle, got him to level 35 in two days, enjoying everyone trying to figure out who is playing him. Back at the mall, I bought Card's Ender's Game which had been highly recommended. I really dislike shopping at Waldenbooks because you always have to put up with their song-and-dance about joining the Preferred Reader Program. I feel like saying, "shut up and give me the change", but instead say, once again, "I don't shop here that often." And I wouldn't have then, either, had it not started pouring rain soon after I got to the mall.

Thanks to the wet evening, Park Place North was packed. I got there early enough to grab space in the most sheltered corner, woke later to see the Wild Man had settled less than three feet from me. Amazing ... eight people and not one of them snored. Even so, on Sunday I returned to Park Place South, LongJohn and Sidney.

I wasn't surprised to see no Bad Boys on Sunday since it was Crazy Money Day and they'd no doubt be holed up somewhere with their glass pipes until the money runs out. I'm amused a little by realizing it is actually Rossini I most miss. He's just such an easy fellow to be with, made even more so by having no big physical yearning for him. But I miss Angelo, too, and in the game, the Sleeptalker. Only in the game.

632a

I walked into the supermarket, picked up the Swiss cheese, rolls, and bottle of Colt for my lunch and headed to the checkout counter. I thought I was having a morphine flashback, had stepped into the Twilight Zone or had actually gone crazy. What the hell was the Sleeptalker doing on the cover of People magazine??? And with the banner, "sexiest man alive"???

Not that I disagree whatever with the banner.

I could only see the top half of the cover, the rest blocked by other stuff. Those eyes, that hair, that expression.

Ahhhh, now I understand why I suddenly became so interested in the career of Brad Pitt.

633

I woke on Friday morning, wondering why they'd turned the lights on. No electricity involved ... it was that big glowing ball in the sky shining in my eyes. Looking over, I saw the moonbeams were also softly illuminating the figure of Sidney, once again laying there stark naked, slowly stroking his lengthy pole. I lit a cigarette, lay there and watched. He must have known I was looking but evidently wasn't concerned, and he seemed to be just enjoying playing with it, not seriously trying to get off. When I finished my smoke, I rolled up my mats, went over and knelt beside him, handed him two cigarettes. "Thanks, man," he said, "you're the best." As before, he showed absolutely no concern about being there naked with a hard-on. I rubbed my hand across his chest and down over his flat belly, but when my hand touched the base of his hard pole, he gently pushed my hand back up, not away, and chuckled. I patted him again on his belly and walked away with a little wave. Strange fellow, and really quite a sweetheart.

Although every day I see plenty of interesting, sexy young men, especially at the beach in Waikiki and on the UH campus, it's surprisingly rare that I see one I really want. Lightning struck twice on Wednesday, though, with the first amusing shower companion I've had in weeks and again later at Manoa Garden. The young Korean sharing the shower kept his shorts on but I enjoyed his fine body and even more when he finally did remove the shorts. Very well equipped, he was, and it soon was on its way to full glory. Alas, someone else came in to wait for a shower. Rotten timing. I felt like giving the guy two dollars, saying "go have a beer on me, come back in twenty minutes." Oh well, Dame Fortune can't be expected to come through every time.

I'm not usually attracted to the beefcake type but sitting in the early evening at Manoa Garden, drinking my second Sam Adams and reading, I looked up to see a very muscular hunk, dressed in shorts and a tanktop, sit at the table right in front of mine, legs widely spread, facing me. Such large, strong arms. If I were fortunate enough to rub my hands over those muscles, it would be a record, easily the biggest biceps I've ever touched in my life. He was aware of my attention but ignored it, concentrating very hard on something he was writing, but the third time his cellular phone went off, he glanced at me and grinned. Be still, my beating heart. A fourth call must have prompted him to make a move, and he smiled again as he left.

Ah yes, lightning twice in one day. I'm getting too old for this.

I haven't mentioned yet the event which began this hideously political week. Some time ago I received an email from a student asking if I would be willing to participate as the subject of an "oral biography", a class project. I agreed, replied to a basic-statistics questionnaire she sent and then arranged to meet her on Monday morning in the secluded grove. As she had warned me, she turned on a tape recorder and spent an hour asking me questions. She's a very attractive young woman with warm, friendly eyes and an enigmatic smile which was the response most of my answers received. She's aware of the Tales and has some knowledge of local online history, so many of her questions concentrated on that, with surprisingly few about the more distant past. I'd had some moments of dread about the exercise after having agreed to it, but it was actually quite pleasant and amusing.

Then, sigh, the dreadful Election. For a country which has spent so much energy, so many lives, such an abundance of resources trying to push our ideal model of government down the collective throats of the planet, it's absurd we can't just let our people vote, efficiently count the results and determine our leader for the next four years. The entire concept of the Electoral College is antiquated and useless in this technological age, if it ever did make sense. And to take so long to come up with the definitive result is almost unbelievable, an embarrassing moment of history for the United States.

Little wonder I felt like drinking beer and losing myself in lustful thoughts of handsome young men.

634

Books.

Twice recently, I've seen the one-time Curmudgeon of Usenet. The second time, he asked "you still reading that?" But it was three books down the line since I'd last seen him. I told him that reading keeps me "sane", but I deny I ever said that. I have to be crazy if I'm getting the Crazy Money, don't I?

Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game is a fine, provocative sci-fi novel. I much enjoyed it, but oddly not enough that when, later, I was in a bookstore holding the sequel in my hand, to buy that one. Maybe at some future time, in a used bookstore. And let us thank the Fates that Jelly's has moved their book enterprise to Puck's Alley, just downhill from the University. Another fifty-cent "cart" to peruse. But no, they don't have the Card sequel, nor do they have Jordan's eighth Wheel of Time volume. I only noticed in the mall on Saturday morning that he has the ninth one now available ... hardcover only, thus far. I can wait.

What I did have was Danielle Steel's Family Album. Extraordinary. Dell Books reprinted a special edition of it, as she says in the intro, one of her favorites, and gave it away FREE to celebrate the publication of her FIFTIETH novel last month. Okay, strange, but certainly Family Album is one of her best.

Pete Hamlin's Loving Women was good, too. A definite Kerouac influence. Growing up in the Fifties, young virgin man from Brooklyn joining the Navy and being sent Down South. The novel really should become required reading for any teenager wanting a REAL manual on the troublesome subject of sex. Never mind the thing depressed me big time.

And the boys ....

Sidney is crazy. Ignore his penchant for getting naked and showing his dick to the world. I saw him at the bus stop on Friday evening and offered him two cigarettes. "Thank you, sir," he said, "but I only smoke Marboros." [!!!] Oh well, I give up on that lad. Angelo's a little like that, very much prefers Kools, but what the hell. If I have the nicotine craving, I don't care what brand it is. I like Pall Malls but I'm not paying more than twice the price of "native" brands to smoke them. Silly boys.

And in the game, a new player appeared named "Mondo". There are only about half a dozen people, aside from Readers of the Tales, who know about that nickname. Now which of them would start a new character in Seventh Circle using that name. Not the real "Mondo", I'd wager.

635

The nights are too long. Yes, of course, we're heading into the darkest time of the year and even though there isn't nearly as much difference at this latitude as there is further north, the nights are still discernably longer. But that's not what I mean. My inner clock has gone whacko, drifted out of sync by an hour or more. I'm almost always ready for sleep by nine, sometimes even eight, but then wake up sometime between three and four as if it's time to start a new day. Nothing to do at that hour but buy coffee from 7-Eleven and sit drinking it and smoking until the world wakes up. So instead I look at my watch, sigh, and force myself to lay back down again, perhaps drift into light sleep for another hour.

I'd had enough of naked Sidney for this Fool Moon cycle, moved back to Park Place North. The crazy couple were there on Friday night but had mercifully fallen asleep early. On Saturday I had the place to myself most of the night, although a bicycle fellow arrived in the wee, wee hours and quietly settled on the other side of the area. Despite the quiet space, I don't think I slept continuously for more than two hours either night.

Another off-line day was expected because of the Veteran's Day holiday, but although the State Library closed for the entire three-day weekend, at UH they staggered it. The libraries closed on Friday, but the computer lab stayed open. It closed on Saturday, but the libraries were open. Everything closed at five but at least it made access available during the day. I went down to the park for lunch on Friday, but stayed on campus all day Saturday, hardly spoke to anyone either day.

I wonder if someone is still trying to write that mythic "Great American Novel"? If so, wasting their time. It was published two months after I was born, written by a twenty-three-year-old woman. The art of writing novels simply doesn't get any better than The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers, don't care what country we are talking about.

Not an easy book to read, though.

636

It must have been a rough weekend for the young'uns. Both the Young Hardhat and Rocky looked totally wrecked on Monday morning. Rocky came into the men's room as I was shaving, said nothing but headed directly to a stall. I looked for him afterwards, would have bought him breakfast just to hear the latest gossip, but he was nowhere around. At least one of the Bad Boys is alive. And not the only one, as I discovered in the course of the day.

Sunday was a dreary gray day with frequent drizzle. I stayed on campus all day but had to abandon the secluded grove for a sheltered spot at lunchtime because of the wetness. Reading, drinking beer, playing Seventh Circle, returning to the mall for a baked potato at Arby's and a nightcap Colt before heading to Park Place North. The bicycle man from the night before was there, sound asleep with a squawky little radio yakking away. Sigh. I moved to PP South. Just LongJohn and his bicycle man buddy, no Sidney, a quiet night, once again waking a little after three and feeling like it was time to start the new day.

The morning was again gray, with frequent drizzle, even one torrential downpour on campus, but then it cleared and was quite pleasant. I played the game until late morning, then went downtown to buy cigarettes. Back to the mall, cheese, rolls and a bottle of Colt for lunch in the park. Rocky, again. He has a new boy. Very tall and slim ["spare me, please", I moaned to myself]. So tall, Rocky looks like a real little shrimp beside him, barely comes up to his shoulders. I ignored them, Rocky ignored me. They were at a nearby table with a lad who is part of a small colony which has been camping in the park for some weeks. That fellow has a magnificent body but when you get close to him, you see what a hard, almost cruel face he has. I told myself to just forget about it. The three of them left at one point, went back to the mall, but returned and sat on the grass near the little dome tent that colony has erected.

Lunch and beer finished, zebra doves stuffed with my excess rolls, I went back to the mall for a refill. Angelo! He didn't see me, was all alone. I followed along behind him. Looked like he was headed for the favorite store and I had no ambition to "spin" for him, but he by-passed that and continued, probably headed to Border's. I stopped following, went to get another bottle of beer. Treat 'em like cats. If he'd wanted to see me (or Rocky) he would've checked the park. Of course, he's probably avoiding me since he owes me twenty dollars. Silly boy, if so, since I'd planned from the start to write it off as a birthday gift. Would've been nicer if he'd handed me twenty and I'd given it back to him, but then it's probably not fair to expect such young fellows to understand style.

Back then to campus, after finishing the second beer. Sitting at my favorite terminal, seeing someone hadn't closed the telnet program ... and had been logged into mud.oro.net:4000. The lingering message bid farewell to the Sleeptalker.

637

Having enjoyed sitting in the chair still warm from the Sleeptalker's cute butt, I took a smoke break. In the game my 14-year-old friend had immediately told me I'd just missed the Sleeptalker. Outside the lab, I saw the Cherub who repeated the news. They had talked briefly. The Cherub said the Sleeptalker was "looking good". "That's the problem," I sighed, "he always does." The Cherub laughed. It's odd and quite touching that such a straight young man is so sympathetic about this bizarre romance between the Old Man and the Waianae Kid.

Although he didn't mention it until the next morning, it was the eve of the Cherub's twenty-fifth birthday, so I was doubly glad when hearing it that I'd treated him to beer for the evening. He was broke again and he's been kind to me when the situation was reversed, so I owed him anyway. We downed two large jugs of that wickedly strong Sam Adams Oktoberfest brew and when the Garden closed, went on to the house where he rents a room and killed a large bottle of red wine. I ended up happily cocooned in a comfy quilt on his floor, slept so soundly that when he woke me and asked if I wanted to get coffee, I thought he'd just laid down for awhile and then decided to have coffee. But it was 6:30 in the morning. That's the first solid sleep I've had in a long time.

The Cherub seems to think I'm being too hard on the Sleeptalker. I think he's being too hard on his mother and her role in the pending divorce. So we spent some time discussing both situations. We're probably both right.

I felt pretty wrecked the next morning but scrambled eggs, bacon and toast helped remove most of the fog. I had to make a quick trip downtown to collect mail but otherwise stayed on campus until heading to the beach park for lunch. I would've had lunch on campus as well had I not wanted to shower. No Bad Boys in sight but that Dome Tent Crew at the park has a new member, very much in the Sleeptalker style, who was a pleasure to watch as they tossed around a frisbee and then he did some fancy moves with a skateboard before settling by himself a little distance away to read.

And on that subject, Andrew Greeley's Irish Gold is a delightful book, and sure don't I have to be careful not to start writing like himself. Bad enough for my thoughts to be coming out in Western Irish idiom.

638

Winter arrived on Thursday night. The usual annual conversations in the mall next morning: "didn't it get suddenly cold", "I hate it when it does that", etc. Not exactly thermal underwear time, but certainly reviving the layered look, a tee shirt and a polo shirt over it, windbreaker over that during the night. I did shop for a suitable cover last week but didn't find anything compact enough, thought I'd just go to a fabric store and buy a couple of yards of heavy flannel. I guess it's time to stop putting it off.

And it does look like this will be a wet and windy winter, judging by its start. It poured rain for much of the night on Wednesday and I had to get up at one point and move my mats further from the edge at Park Place South, then make the long walk around the tennis courts in the morning since the usual walk across the grass would have been a very soggy one. Although it was pleasant during the day on Thursday, it began to rain again as I was on the bus headed to the park. Fortunately it stopped long enough for me to cross from the mall to Park Place. I started out at North but that dreadful couple were there. She was obviously ready to sleep but he wouldn't shut up, and her screeches at him to "fock it off" were more annoying than his incoherent mumbling. I switched to South, as usual, far more crowded in such weather but at least only with loners quietly sleeping or preparing to ... and about a dozen cats all sitting and watching me as I settled down.

When I bought Greeley's Irish Gold from the fifty-cent cart I noticed the sequel, Irish Lace, was there, too, and was very pleased to see it still there when I realized how much I was enjoying the first book, quickly went to the store for the second. It's totally remarkable that one of the most charming and endearing female characters in contemporary fiction has been created by a Catholic priest. Equally remarkable that favorite line of mine from the first book. When told the Mass is now called the Eucharist, our heroine replied "the focking Mass is the focking Mass". Yes, a priest who can be that amusing is certainly on my list of most-treasured writers.

And wasn't it grand indeed that after a few drops of the malt taken during the day while reading the second book, I was given a free jar of the stuff to enjoy while finishing it after sunset. Brilliant.

639

A gray, damp Saturday morning (after yet another rain-drenched night) was suddenly brightened. Dear Santa, all I want for Christmas is ... the Young Hardhat. Looks like his schedule has changed to include working on Saturday. Fine with me.

And so is that new young fellow in the park, the Discus Thrower. I'd like to see him posing as the classic statue of that figure. After the usual trip to Chinatown for cheap cigarettes and the State Library for books, I went to the park for Friday lunch. Enjoyed the cheese and rolls, and the beer, the birds enjoyed sharing the rolls. But I most enjoyed watching the Discus Thrower and his buddies playing frisbee catch again. Then the Discus Thrower made a wild pitch and the frisbee ended up stuck in the top of a tall palm tree. For half an hour they tried to get the thing down. One of the guys was very good at palm climbing, made it nearly to the top and knocked off a lot of dead leaves but didn't manage to dislodge the frisbee. The Discus Thrower tried climbing, much fun to watch, but barely managed to get about five feet up the trunk before sliding back down. Then he stood there throwing big rocks into the tree. More dead leaves fell, but no frisbee. They finally gave up. I was tempted to go to the mall and buy them a new frisbee but tell myself it's wiser to keep my distance, especially with such apparently permanent residents of the park, and with that one being so very much in the Sleeptalker style.

A young lady at 7-Eleven unwittingly did me a great favor when she asked if I wanted the beer charged to my plastic as well. Wow, didn't know I could spend the cash part of it directly in the store. I surely did. There was $20 cash still on the card but no way to get it from an ATM since the dollar withdrawal fee was missing, so it was like suddenly finding an extra twenty in my pocket. And considering the state of those pockets, a more than welcome discovery.

Back to the secluded grove with that, the third Colt of the day, and continuing reading at sunset. From one of the most clever heroines of contemporary fiction to one of the dumbest, the central figure in Doris Lessing's The Good Terrorist. What kind of nutty female would live with and support a layabout gay wannabe-terrorist for fifteen years? Amusing novel, but sheez, is that woman stupid or what.

Three 40oz bottles are enough for one day so I refrained from the Friday night gig at Manoa Garden, went off to Park Place at about 8:30. There was some big gathering underway but as often happens, the north gate hadn't been opened. The Wild Man and someone else were already there asleep, so I settled in a corner and joined them. Then the Dreadful Couple moved in when it started raining, squabbling away as usual. With only two exceptions I know of, every male-female couple on the streets constantly bicker and bitch at each other. Fortunately they shut up fairly quickly, but they had woken the Wild Man who then decided to sit up and plunk on his guitar! People are so damned self-centered and inconsiderate. I moved to Park Place South. Ye gawds, yet another squabbling couple. Mercifully, they, too, soon shut up and it was a peaceful night except for once again having to get up and move further from the edge when the rain got too heavy.

Earlier, I saw the Cherub briefly. He was happy about landing a part in the production of "Faust" here next April and him being in it gives me yet another reason to look forward to it. Not to mention looking forward to spring, full stop. Here it is just Thanksgiving week and I'm already wishing winter was over.

640

Unlike one of my favorite on-line journal writers, I don't have anything nearly as interesting as "flying fat globules" to talk about, just another slightly dull, routine weekend. Oh well, get Thanksgiving out of the way and one more slightly dull, routine weekend and we can go full force into that annual Spirit thing. A cute young fellow passed me Sunday evening who seemed to already be infected, was merrily whistling "Joy to the World". I looked up from my book and smiled at him. He returned the smile, went back to whistling, and then looked back once more with another smile before going on his way. Dear Santa, maybe there's room in the stocking for the Young Hardhat and the Young Whistler?

A reader has been teasing me about having turned into a Capitalist since I got the Crazy Money grant. Hmmmm, maybe so. The thought of returning, even for a few days, to totally empty pockets, snipe and quarter hunting, gives me the shudders. Hanging onto every penny. Another reader kindly suggested what sounds like an ideal solution to the sleep-cover problem but examining those pockets and what's left on the plastic, I decided I'd risk a few shivery nights and wait until the Fabled Pension Check arrives before checking out her idea. Just enough cash for cigarettes and beer until then ... and McD's senior coffee in the mornings, helped a bit early Monday morning when a stroller was just sitting there waiting to be returned for those two quarters. No more scrambled eggs until December, though.

I ran into the Cherub late Sunday afternoon and we chatted for awhile sitting outside Sinclair Library. He amused me with stories of the rehearsals for "Faust", especially the simulated orgy scene in Part One, and with an account of a "rave" he'd gone to on Saturday night. There's a young lady in the "Faust" cast he's developing a major crush on and he was worrying about getting a "miniature rose" and giving it to her. Would she think it was stupid? I told him he knows her, I don't, so he's in a better position to judge whether she'd think it was stupid .... or sweet and stupid. Young love.

I'd lined up a Danielle Steel double feature for the weekend and much enjoyed Wings, another of her best. Funnily enough, the Cherub has to write a book report on her The Gift, half-jokingly suggested I write it for him. Then he said the professor would never believe he had written it. I'm not sure if that's a clever compliment or a clever insult, but I can't imagine writing a collegiate-type report on a Steel novel. The second one of the weekend was Five Days in Paris, more her fluffier type of yarn about the rich and famous but entertaining nonetheless.

I stayed on campus all weekend, only returning to the mall for a nightcap before heading to Park Place South which was mercifully peaceful both Saturday and Sunday nights. Such odd dreams on Sunday night, buying a tiny Miro painting. It wasn't at all his style, a dreamily realistic study of a small restaurant with quite magically done glowing balls as lights. Why I thought it by Miro, I don't know, but I did manage to buy it for an absurdly small amount of money. There was a second painting I was after, too, but I can't remember anything about it or who the artist was. Maybe that's what a bedtime snack of cottage cheese and potato chips washed down by a Mickey's does to the guy who lives in the dreams (which much of the time just doesn't seem to be me at all).